


She is Voices in the Wind, Voices in the Wind

by finch (afinch)



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Gen, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 23:10:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/301072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afinch/pseuds/finch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He keeps her, saves her, makes her something else entirely. He is a very lonely Ellimist and she was so very brave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She is Voices in the Wind, Voices in the Wind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunspeared](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunspeared/gifts).



You were very brave, he says and she squints against the light and tries to see what is going on. He has just told her, in her dying moments, his story, and now she is here again, but she couldn't begin to figure out where here was. She blinks, slowly, and it takes a while for her to figure out that she isn't in human form.

You were very brave, he says again and she shakes her head, only to hear him laughing. It must be laughing, there's no other word for it. she realises she hasn't heard him really truly laugh before, that everything was so grim and now there is a peace, there is peace, a peace, peace, there is peace and she is in it and he is laughing and she was so very brave, she was brave and she had fire in her blood even then.

You have quite the moxie against Drode too, he adds and she finally figures out that he's saved her in some way, taken her so far away from everything, yet closer than she's ever been. She doesn't know everything, but there's fire in her blood, whatever her blood is, we don't all bleed the same, not anymore.

Not anymore, she thinks, and her eyes finally see. She's not humanoid, she's an odd shape. Almost like a pole. There are no arms. There is nothing to her that is familiar except her memories.

I get so lonely, he says and she figures it out. Drode. Herself. The battle. Dying. Dying. She died. She's dead. Rachel isn't there anymore. Rachel is a body, a shell, a nothing. Killed with a swipe. Fragile. She had died fragile, on Jake's orders, that was it. That was all.

Not all, he says and she realises they are connected. He can read her thoughts, hear her thoughts and she can feel everything that is his loneliness. He saved her because he was lonely, and somewhere in there, she needs to laugh, because it's absolutely absurd. Isn't that the story of humans.

The story of human is the story of ideas, but he doesn't say it, it's in her head, but she's realising that she doesn't really have a head, just a poleish creature, with no arms, and eyes. She has a brain somewhere, she has ideas, but that doesn't make her human.

All the ideas, he thinks again, and she, suddenly exhausted, can only nod. All the ideas. All the ideas. All the pieces. It is exhausting and she needs to rest.

 

***

They aren't anywhere she could have imagined. Man's imagination paled in comparison to this, to the wonder of the universe and universe and universe. She is everywhere and nowhere, right now. Rachel is just a dead body, and she hasn't asked how the end of the battle went, but she knows, she knows what happened, she knows the Earth is safe, she knows it was a war and in war people die, and she has died.

I always did like you, he says, and she jumps at his voice. They can think, but she hadn't expected him to speak.

You can too, he says kindly, and she opens her mouth and tries to find the words, but they are slow, not hot and milky off her tongue, but harsh, like glass.

Whoa, she says and the word surprises her, so she says another. Where are we?

The Planinium Galaxy, he says, and he is smiling, so she smiles back as well. It's the prettiest thing she's ever seen, but she's got the feeling she'll be saying that for a long time now, a long time now. It's the prettiest thing she's ever seen, but she hasn't seen anything, not really.

Crayak hasn't found a way to destroy it, he says, and her blood rages fire some more.

You did that on purpose, she accuses, the fire eating at her, consuming her, until she is so mad she thinks she will explode if she doesn't do anything. It isn't fair. He saved her, he was lonely, but he saved her to fight for him, again, just a pawn, a piece, and it's hot white and everywhere and she doesn't know what to do with all the anger.

Drode cannot defeat you, he says and she is calmed by this, inexplicably, and she shakes to the side a little, to indicate that yes, she understands. Having not beat her, he cannot beat her anymore. She is the winner here, she she she. Not him, not Drode, not the Yeerks. Earth is saved, and her sacrifice wasn't a sacrifice, they watched her die, they watched her die.

That is the old way, he says, and she moves to the other side, angry at the thought. She knows, she understands, she just does not want to understand. They are the old way, the old fight, and she cannot see what he can see, but she knows. She is not Rachel, Rachel is only a body, a tiny human body, and she is around the Earth, around the galaxy, around the universe. She is whole to it, it follows her. She is not him, she cannot see the whole of it like he can, but she knows, there is so much more ahead.

You did that on purpose, she accuses again, her memories spilling all over, too many memories, so she picks and chooses and keeps the ones that are not locked in Earth. She keeps those that pertain to the galaxy, pertain to the game. The old way is dead, it is thousands of years later, it was only yesterday. She giggles, she understands, she gets how to play.

I always liked you, he says and she understands why, and understands suddenly what it was she was born for. She might have been an accident into the fight, but she was born for it, for this, for countering Drode and jumping in with her fire blood and passion and none of the memories and everything of the future and the game. She is the game now, she understands, he didn't make her a pawn, he made her a hand, moving the pieces. She can do it, she can do it, she can do it, she can be it all.

She is voices in the wind. Voices in the wind.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to beta ___!


End file.
